Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

102 How It Worksconfidence in what they believe they know. It also dependson the suitability of alternative coordinating processes.AlternativesI take note once more that the state is the greatest participantin market systems. It is a buyer of such things as public buildings,bridges, and armaments—a very long list. Among itsmany purchases, it hires soldiers, astronauts, nurses, policeofficers, gardeners, and people in every other occupationone might think of. And of course both the corporation andthe family or household participate in the market system.Obvious as the market participation of these three institutionsis, each is also an alternative to the market system.The state can hire an army or, not making use of the labormarket, simply command its young people to enlist. A corporationcan buy its electric power or produce its own. Ahousehold can patronize a barber or, setting aside the marketsystem, do its haircutting at home. To the three I add aless familiar fourth alternative—civil society, amorphousas the concept is. The society’s choice of domain for themarket system depends on its estimate of the capacities ofeach of these four alternatives.The state tends to overshadow the other alternatives.Because the market system cannot administer the compulsionnecessary for social order, it is the state, foremost, thatdoes so. And because the market system cannot establishitself, it is of course the state that does so, through, interalia, laws on liberty and property. To be sure, custom alsooften serves this purpose, but never sufficiently.The household is a nonmarket coordinator surroundedby market coordination. Within a nuclear family, membersordinarily do not sell and buy each other’s performances or